


The One with the Transformation

by captainangua



Series: DeanCas oneshots [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Castiel's True Form, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Love Confessions, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Season/Series 12, Snow, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 20:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8028010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: In which Cas is turned into a snowman, and Dean only knows that he hates witches, and he can think of half a dozen puns in which to comment on the situation but no solutions .





	The One with the Transformation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/gifts).



> So I promise I am actually working on the various WIPs but I remembered I never actually finished typing this up so...
> 
> This was supposed to be crack, but it got angstier because apparently I can't take the dumb wonderful original plan of 'Cas gets turned into a snowman and Dean makes terrible jokes' and actually run with it in a happy way omg what is wrong with me.
> 
> For BurningTea because the above idea coming into my head was her fault.

Dean enjoyed listening to his brother’s ‘fed’ voice. There was just something slightly different in the tone of the voice he used when playing the concerned citizen, which was very different to his regular phone voice.

Dean liked tracking the changes because it reminded him of the skinny kid who used to want to act. He felt like he didn’t see much of him anymore, even if having their Mom around was making them bring out boyish sides neither of them knew they still had - even if Mary was really more of an age with them, if not younger.

Which might be one of the reasons Dean found it easier still to think of her as ‘Mary’ and not ‘Mom’.

“– Thank you sergeant,” Sam said, his mouth strung into a thin displeased line when he hung up the phone.

Dean picked up his coffee, smirking slightly. “What’s the sitch’, Agent?”

Sam ignored him. “Another missing person – same M.O. again. Nothing in the locked room they were last seen in except a pool of water, and get this – this time, they found a _carrot_. And I bet if we went hunting through the scene we’d find another of those hex bags around the room.”

Dean made a face and nodded at the coffee in his hand. “’S’kinda like that riddle with the dead fish.”

“What?”

“Y’know… Romeo comes home and finds Juliet… No? Never mind. Yeah. You seen Cas?”

“No.” Sam frowned. “Well, not since he left to go talk to missing guy number three’s wife.”

Dean put down his coffee slowly. “You let him go handle that on his own? After last time? C’mon Sam, y’know he’s no good at the whole -”

Sam’s lips flatlined again. “What?”

“…Talking. To, y’know, normal people. He still gets all… weird.”

“I didn’t ‘let’ him do anything, Dean. He’s been alive for billions of years -”

“And never caught a how-to of smalltalk in all that time.”

“Well how’s he going to ever learn any if we don’t _encourage_ him to talk to people?”

“He talks all the time!”

Sam’s shoulders slumped as he smiled slightly. “Yeah. To you. Or me, or Mom now, sometimes. Not exactly normal people to start with, and besides, he’s not just gonna get magically better at this side of things unless he tries them.”

“Y’got to let him spread his wings sometime, Dean.”

Sam laughed aloud as their Mom walked in behind him. It still sounded like he was half-laughing because he could still barely believe she was there at all, never mind with a terrible and wonderful sense of humour to boot. That was coming out stronger than it might have, Dean suspected, from dealing with what was essentially the trauma she’s had to go through.

Pulled out of death to a future she wasn’t supposed to have lived to see, with two very messed up grown kids and a dead husband. And now an angel as a roommate.

Yeah, she was dealing, in a way Dean instantly recognised – with plenty of bad jokes and the not-so occasional drink. But at least Dean liked to think they were all getting better at not relying so much on that, he thought as he looked down at the coffee in his hand.

“Yeah, well. Has he even been introduced to these people? Is he just some extra random fed -”

“Dean, he’s not an idiot remember.”

Dean scowled and rolled his eyes. _Obviously_ that hadn’t been what he’d meant. He just… well, Cas had been having a hard time of it, and he didn’t want the poor guy to keep feeling like he needed to _prove_ himself to them all the time.

He’d accepted a room for himself now, at least. He’d claimed before that since he didn’t sleep he had no real need of his own space. Dean had kept telling him this was bullshit, and he suspected, still, that the only reason Cas had eventually taken up the offer of the room was to stop Dean getting upset. But the room, slowly, was becoming less of a blank space than what Mary’s still remained.

At her request, and to the reluctance of both of her sons, they’d left her their Dad’s journal in the room along with the few photos they had of life after her. Sam had also left her with an old laptop, and had introduced her a little more to what the internet looked like. So far those were the only personal effects in her room, and she’d so far barely commented on them, which was more worrying to Dean than tears or raging might have been, he thought as he carefully watched her sit down across from him at the table.

“I looked into that hexbag we found,” she said, eyes flicking between her boys as Sam moved to sit down as well. “Lot of basic transformation spells mixed in there.”

“So what, these people got turned into bugs and stepped on maybe?” Dean shuddered slightly. “God I hate witches.”

Mary gave him that lingering look Dean sometimes noticed when one of them talked about hunting, but she didn’t say anything.

“But then what about the water?” Sam persisted.

“Turned into bugs and _drowned_?”

“That’s dumb.”

“I remember a bunch of kids who used to do that sort of crap in school.”

“Seen as you usually _were_ those kids, I’ll take your word for it,” Sam sniped, before they both realized what he’d said and froze. Without Dad around they’d grown past the coded instincts of siblings protecting each other’s misdeeds - but Mary only smiled faintly. Dean wondered if that was worse.

He quickly left the room after that, citing a need for more coffee as he headed down to the kitchen. It was nice having his family all around him, but sometimes he still craved his own space, something he hadn’t appreciated the Bunker had started giving him for the first time.

He was trying to work out how long they’d actually been living there now when he almost walked into the snowman.

It was around half the size of Dean, made up of just two large balls, and wearing a carrot nose, with stores for the mouth – which wasn’t smiling - and eyes.

“Fuck this,” Dean said, backing away and putting his coffee down on the side. “Sam!” he should as he put his head out the door, eyes still on the snowman. “We got some sort of friggin’ Christmas demon.”

He heard his brother shout something back that sounded from a distance like, “It’s only November!” as he ducked back into the kitchen and slowly approached the little snowman.

“Not in my kitchen,” he muttered, reaching out a hand to touch it. Was it even real snow?

Just as his hand felt the cold and registered an affirmative answer to his own question, he _felt_ more than he heard Cas saying his name.

_Dean._

Stumbling slightly, Dean backed away from the snowman, eyes darting fearfully around the room. Then after a few moments of chastising himself for being an idiot he called out, “Cas?” just as his brother skidded into the room behind him.

“What – Cas is back?”

Then Sam looked at the snowman and his expression of concern morphed quickly into a clear attempt to stifle a laugh.

“Uh, I mean, now you say it, the uh the snowman does kinda have his expression…”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, really expressive carrot that one. _No_ , I’m saying I thought I heard Cas speak.”

“What, just -”

“Like a second ago!”

Sam’s face had shifted firmly back into the concerned camp now. “What did he say?”

“Just, y’know, my name.”

The concern got worse, and for a moment Dean felt as though he was still fresh from purgatory and telling Sam that he couldn’t stop seeing Cas everywhere. It was that look of sympathy Sam did so well that Dean couldn’t like any better with familiarity.

“And you heard this when you were just standing here?”

“No, when I went over and touched Olaf over there.”

“Well maybe the snowman’s like a siren thing, let’s us here what we want to here.”

“And you think that’s Cas for me?”

Sam gave his weary look and walked over to the snowman. Then he carefully bent down to place a hand on it.

“Wait,” Dean said, still trying to think of a better response to Sam’s siren comment. “Maybe it is dangerous.”

“You seem fine,” Sam pointed out and pressed his hand to the snowman’s head. A second later he let out a little gasp, but kept his hand firmly glued to the snow.

“And do you know what did this to you?”

“Sammy are you… are you actually talking to the snowman?”

Sam glared at him and made to open his mouth, but Dean got in there first.

“Wait, _Cas_? Are you talking to _Cas_?”

Sam rolled his eyes and nodded before concentrating again on whatever riveting conversation he was enjoying with the angel-turned-snowman. Dean watched him – _them_ , apparently, with a hell of a load of confusion and frustration. But there was also a squirming _something_ in his gut that felt too much like jealousy.

Like sure, Sam was smart enough to work something like this out, and obviously he was close with Cas, they lived with the guy now, but… but Dean had always been closer, right? And since he’d got that first chance to work out what was going on he should have taken it and realised that Cas was a fucking snowman.

Cas was a _snowman_.

Right.

Bigger problems.

“Let me have a listen in on this,” he grunted as he knelt down beside his brother and put a hand on what he could only think of as Cas’s shoulder.

 _Dean_ , Cas acknowledged, before, Dean supposed, speaking to both of them.

_The woman I met with earlier, she must be the witch, and an incredibly powerful one. She must have guessed that we were on to her and slipped me a hex bag. Luckily it didn’t take effect until after I returned here._

“Well we didn’t get that close on her tail,” Sam said. “We never guessed snowmen… shit.”

“What?”

“Carrot. Melted water, no bodies.”

Dean gave his brother a look. “Yeah. _Obviously_ we should have thought of snowmen. C’mon it’s November - you’re right, this ain’t even seasonal.”

Then he turned to the creepy snowman head. “And she must be powerful to have got the jump on you like this.”

There was a hesitation to Cas’s thoughts that Dean wasn’t sure he would have picked up on if he wasn’t listening to them like this. _Yes._

“Wait, so is this your vessel transfigured or like, your consciousness displaced?”

Again with the hesitation. _Transfigured, I think._

Dean blinked. “Consciousness what now?”

Sam ignored him. “So if this was definitely the last woman you spoke to, then we can definitely catch her, and we can force her to reverse this. We’ll drag the freezer over here, set you up in some bags in ice-”

Dean got the strange sensation that Cas was nodding along to what Sam was saying, despite the fact that the snow had not moved.

 _I’ll wait here,_ Cas said eventually, which made Dean instantly feel flashbacked to the fucking song in the schoolgirl musical, which had never seemed to completely leave his head since.

“Ok,” Sam said, wiping down his jeans as he stood up. “It shouldn’t take us long.”

Dean didn’t move his own hand. In the same way that he _knew_ that Cas had been nodding at them, now he knew that Cas was more than a little demoralized at the thought that both Sam and Dean would be leaving to protect him, when once he might have done the same for them.

“I’ll stay here with Cas,” Dean said on impulse.

Sam’s eyes darted between Dean and the snowman. “Sure,” he said slowly.

“Yeah. You take Mom, I’ll look out for Cas in case the bitch comes back for him.”

Sam nodded. “Ok, I’ll call you. Just keep Cas cold!”

“Nothing heating up in here, snow worries,” Dean assured his brother with a grin he knew Sam did his best to avoid looking at as he left the room. But because he felt uncomfortable not being able to get any reaction from Cas but those staring stone eyes, Dean put his hand back on the snow and got something like the feeling of a sigh creeping back through the mind static.

“We’ll get you back, don’t worry, Cas.”

There was no answer.

“Cas?”

_Dean, I’m still melting, do you think –_

“Yeah, cool, the freezer.”

Dean looked back at the snowman and wondered if Cas was able to see much, or anything. He seemed to be able to hear them, even without ears, although that could have been to do with them keeping close in contact with him.

Did that mean Cas could hear what Dean was feeling? Could he hear…

Dean returned to set up the mini freezer Sam had talked about, along with bringing a bag of frozen, and an old baseball cap.

“See, you look finished now,” Dean said, putting a hand on Cas as he place the cap on his head after he’d finished creating his little igloo nest.

_I’m glad you find this amusing at least._

“I’m sorry. It’s just… yeah, hold up a sec. I’m gonna snap a picture for Claire, at least.”

Dean smiled at the snowman from around his phone. “What’s the matter, buddy, you’re looking awful _stony_ with me,” he said, almost giggling.

“And don’t worry,” he added, putting his hand back on the snow. “Mary and Sam, they’re gonna fix this. Remember we’ve got through weirder shit going on than this and got through it ok. Like, hey, remember the apocalypse, when you kept having to eat all those burgers?”

He chucked slightly but he could tell that snowman-Cas didn’t see the funny side.

“Reception for that was kinda _chilly_ there.”

That time Dean felt as though he might have been able to have coaxed an inner smile. He was just regretting now that he couldn’t actually see it – he loved those tiny begrudging smiles Cas gave him sometimes, like he hadn’t even noticed Dean was drawing them out of him.

_You like my smile?_

Dean jerked back slightly before gently placing his hand down again on the rounded snow, which was feeling disturbingly more wet under his touch despite the freezer.

He should be making a joke about that too, but he should also not be making a joke about that.

Dean cleared his throat. “Sure. It’s creepy seeing you like this, in like, the wrong body.”

Dean sensed he was getting something like a shrug for that.

_I’m always in the ‘wrong body’, Dean. I’m an angel. I don’t really belong on the physical plane at all._

“Well, sure, but Jimmy’s body – that’s _yours_ now, man. You’ve been human or basically human in it like twice now, right?”

_Yes. But my true form is almost completely alien to that body. I’m not supposed to… fit._

“So Frosty the Snowman isn’t any worse than normal?”

_No, it is worse. Here I feel trapped, not welcomed. My powers have been sorely limited – I feel far more disabled than I did with only my wings broken._

Dean blinked, and unconsciously pressed his hand down a little tighter. “ _Broken_ wings? I thought you just… couldn’t use ‘em anymore. They really got all torn up like Gadreel’s were?”

Cas paused, and if Dean had to guess, he would say he seemed embarrassed, though it also didn’t feel like any emotion he was actually familiar with himself.

_Yes, I suppose. We are all less than what we were._

The honest-to-God _depression_ Dean could feel emanating from his friend’s mind made him briefly pull his hand away and clench it tightly. He didn’t realise how much time he spent avoiding thinking about feelings until someone thrust it in his face, or in this case, direct into his mind, and he wasn’t able to do or say a fucking thing about it.

With a lighter touch than before Dean pressed his hand down again. “Not less,” he said, looking the snowman in its stone eyes and feeling an idiot. Then he coughed and took his hand away before he could feel out any reply to that, realising that his hand really was covered in water now, and felt his heart rate speed up a little.

For the first time, he started to really think over this dumb scenario in context with the case – sure, none of the ice victims had had the advantage of being angels or having anyone around who could help them through, it, but they’d all melted by the time anyone had noticed they were even missing.

Dean placed his hand back on the snowman. “I’m going to go see if I can fiddle around with the AC, alright, Cas?”

He felt like he got a dull nod in reply, and a fleeting thought that was maybe running through both of their heads, wondering what would happen if Cas really did just melt away. Assumedly, it would be as effective as someone stabbing him with an angel blade – or would his real form be freed, and only his human form destroyed?

But if he had somehow, as he had once theorised as a human, grown a kind of soul of his own…

“What do you mean, ‘grown a soul’?” Dean asked, although he wasn’t entirely certain the thought hadn’t come from his own mind. It was getting difficult to tell.

Another shrug.

_Angels weren’t created with souls, we have no bodies to house them in. But souls are strangely durable, changeable materials. When Sam had no soul he still had something of a personality, yes? He still reacted to situations and learnt from them?_

Dean nodded slowly. “Sure. Dude was a dick but he was kinda funny.”

_I suspect that had his isolation from his soul continued he might have developed another soul._

“Wait, so Sam could have had two souls?”

_It’s only a theory. But humans are meant as vessels for souls – without them, they are something akin to an empty shell, still ready to be occupied by something else._

“And Jimmy’s been empty since that first time you died, right?”

_Yes. So it could be that my vessel adapted more to its surroundings than I’ve notice. It could be why I’m now able to be trapped here._

“You said you think you’re… less,” Dean said, still not sure he was following everything.

Cas seemed to pause in his thinking for a moment.

_I think there might be nothing else like me. I don’t think I am less or more, just… very different. So I can’t now be sure of what will happen if I melt._

“You’re not gonna melt,” Dean corrected him, frowning. “I’m gonna turn up that AC some more and make sure you stay just fine, alright?”

There was no reply but a vague feeling of assent, so Dean got back up on his feet.

No, he wasn’t about to let Cas die, and especially not for a reason this _dumb._

He was still muttering to himself about just how dumb it was when his phone started buzzing in his pocket.

“Sam, how’d you get the fucking AC to work last time?”

“What? Dean, why are you – is Cas melting already?”

“Not _melting_ , just sorta wet around the edges. So is it the red switch at the back….? C’mon I know you got this working last summer.”

“We’re fine, thanks for asking,” Sam said dryly, as Dean continued burying his head into the tangled forest of wires he’d found. “Yeah I think it was the red dial – but there should be an instruction manual sitting around somewhere if you can hold off another few minutes. Uh, so we almost caught up with the witch but she managed to get away. Turns out she had a back door.”

“Well, _hurry,_ ” Dean growled as he furiously turned the dials round.

“You know we are. You just… be careful too. Some of those books I was reading on angels we’ve got buried around the bunker…”

“What?” Dean snapped. “Y’think Cas is going to turn into an evil Christmas demon after all?”

“No, of course not – I think no one knows exactly what would happen if the physical form of an angel was melted off of them, and this ‘vessel’ was already vulnerable to start off with – even the right people have issues holding them – how are two balls of snow going to hold -”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Cas is _fine_ and he’s going to be fine, and -”

“I’m not saying he’d mean to! Just… remember Pamela’s eyes? An angel without a physical form isn’t someone you want to be around.”

Dean remembered. He remembered the horrible stench of burning flesh that had come with it too.

“He’s not melting, he’s not going anywhere, y’hear me? You’re going to figure this out and I’m gonna – well I’m not gonna leave him.” _Again,_ he finished in his head, but he figured that somehow Sam would be able to hear it almost in the same way Cas could when Dean was touching him. He could almost feel the look of pity Sam was shooting the phone.

When he got back Dean was almost certain it looked as though the snowman angel’s nose had slipped a little down his head, which immediately sent Dean into a panic. But also –

“Ha. Thought of another,” he said, bending down with the beer he’d found for himself to put a hand back on the snow. “Snow angel.”

Dean beamed, feeling like he might have actually got a real smile in return for that. “I’m hilarious, it’s ok. You don’t need to tell me – I know.”

The smiling seemed to get a little more faint, but it was still there. Dean wondered if Cas was almost trying to keep himself smaller, less, to fit inside the body substitute he’d been trapped in.

“Look Cas, I just spoke to Sam, and they’re close to pinning this bitch, it’s gonna be fine.”

_Dean, if it’s not –_

“It will be.”

_But if not – even if my angelic form survives it, that would be it. I would not want to take another human vessel, and without physical form I am even more obvious to Heaven’s notice._

“We’d find you another vessel -”

_Who would you suggest, Claire? Not many are able to hold an angel, Dean. You know that better than anyone._

“What about me?” The words seemed to slip out before Dean was even aware they were there.

There was a pause, and then, _No._

“C’mon Cas, I’m not letting you die on me or something – not again.”

Dean kept his tone light, despite his awareness that Cas could almost certainly feel the very real terror of loss and abandonment behind his words.

_Well, you were going to leave me, one day._

Dean heard the thought so quickly that for a moment he wondered if he’s only imagined it. But the almost embarrassed silence that Cas was giving him now seemed to confirm it.

“Cas – I don’t know what show you’re watching, but I’m not going anywhere, buddy,” Dean assured him in a softer tone. “You’re stuck with me now.”

 _One day you’re going to die,_ Cas said bluntly. _The mark is gone, you’re only mortal. One day –_

“Yeah, well, I don’t plan on that day being anytime soon,” Dean grunted, suddenly uncomfortable with the weight of the real grief he could feel from the snowman. “So don’t you flake – or melt, whatever – on me now, y’hear me? You’re important.”

_Well in the scheme of things –_

“You’re important to _me,_ Cas – y’know, to us.”

 _Thank you,_ Cas said eventually. _I’m like a brother to you, you said._

Dean hesitated. For some reason this sort of shit was harder to come out and talk about than it used to be, with Cas. “Well, yeah, Cas. You’re family now. You’d say the same right?”

For some reason he felt nervous to ask.

 _No, Dean,_ the angel said awkwardly, and it was all Dean could do to nod and not snatch his hand away. _Dean, I don’t simply love you out of some kind of familial bond. I love you for yourself, for you as a man._

It took a moment of confused blinking for Dean to find his voice, and it was hoarser than he remembered it being when he did.

“You, you love me?”

The snowman, obviously, didn’t move. _Well that’s what you were saying first, I just –_

“Went more specific.” Dean breathed out slowly. “Fuck, a snowman just told me it’s in love with me.”

_Technically that’s not what I said._

“Yeah, but I can _feel_ what you _meant -_ ” Dean said, feeling slightly giddy. Because Cas loved him – Cas was _in_ love with him, this amazing, awesome good person that was really an all powerful –

Snowman.

Cas was still a snowman,

And he was still melting under Dean’s palm.

“I’m going to get you out of this, Cas.”

 _I know. You’re the Winchesters. You usually figure some way out of situations, even if it isn’t a smart one. Just don’t call Crowley,_ he added quickly. _I think I’d rather melt on your kitchen floor than let him see me like this._

“I’m not gonna get you out of this because I’m a Winchester or whatever it was you just said,” Dean interjected moodily. “I’m gonna save you -” _Because I love you too_ “- Because you’re you, and, and I’m me.”

He thought Cas had been able to hear what had been so strangely simple for Dean to admit to himself, but he wasn’t brave enough to check, and Cas was kind enough not to push him.

_Oh, Dean._

“But I’m gonna start with just seeing if that aircon can turn down any further.”

*

Sam started to panic slightly when his brother didn’t answer his phone, but he rationalised verbally all the way after subduing the witch with Mary as to the myriad number of sensible reasons for Dean to have done that.

“ –I’m just hoping he’s not doing anything stupid.”

“Stupid?”

His mother’s eyes reminded Sam vividly sometimes of Cas as he’d been back when he’d first met him. Questioning, yet knowing, and obviously curious whilst remaining oddly detached. But she managed to make him feel even more scrutinised for giving the wrong answer before he’d even thought about what he was going to say.

Funny, but Mary had always felt more of an omnipresent idol of a presence in Sam’s life than even Cas, a real life angel of God had, or, hell, than even God himself had.

No wonder he felt so tied up in knots all the time trying not to let her down. He wasn’t sure his brother shared that feeling in the same way, so he hadn’t brought it up – after all, they’d had at least a little time to love each other as people before she’d died. Sam really had been only a stranger to her before a few months ago.

“It’s just…” Sam swallowed. How to put it in a way that wouldn’t needlessly alarm her or put Dean in trouble with her? “Cas means a lot to Dean. To us both, but… yeah, well.  We’ve got a bad habit of being stupid when it comes to people we care about being in danger.” He swallowed. “Making bad deals.”

He snorted to himself as he stared at the road and watched as her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, and watched her face pale. He’d _still_ manage to say the wrong thing.

But they had basically told her their entire story. Surely nothing that Sam could tell her would be able to shock her…

“Must run in the family,” she muttered.

“Dad was just… trying to do his best for Dean, in the end, I think,” Sam said stiltedly.

“No, Sam, me,” she said, smiling faintly at him. “I’m – I know I haven’t really said it properly yet, but I am sorry. You more than anyone got the raw end of my bad deal.”

Sam slowly breathed out. “You mean with Azazel.”

She turned a wary eye to him. “Was that its name? Well yes. My entire family and the man I loved were dead. I understand doing desperate things to keep someone you love with you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t regret it. When I read your… John’s journal and know that I did that to him, that I set him on that path without meaning to.”

“Yeah, well, I mean… If you hadn’t,” Sam tried awkwardly. “Me and Dean wouldn’t even be alive. And it really hasn’t been all bad.”

She gave him another quick, sad, smile. “Yes, but I still made a selfish bad choice because I couldn’t bear that he was dead in my arms and the option to bring him back was right there, right in front of me…”

She trailed off, and horror-struck look returned to her dace. “Oh God, he is going to do something stupid, isn’t he?”

Sam made a face. “Maybe… hurry a little?”

But when they eventually rushed into the kitchen, Dean was lying asleep and curled up tight in a sleeping bag. The room felt like ten different ghosts were trying to haunt the place simultaneously.

“I didn’t want to move him,” Cas said from behind Sam.

“Cas,” Sam said, spinning around. “Hey, you’re alright!” he breathed out with relief, even as he still felt his heart pounding from the fright as he pulled the angel into a hug Cas didn’t return.

“Sam,” he said seriously, the moment he pulled away. “How do you turn your air conditioning off? I think Dean managed to bring the bunker temperatures down past what’s safe for humans to live in.”

“Uh, sure,” Sam said, patting Cas on the arm and moving to go as he noticed his brother waking up.

“Cas?” Dean asked groggily, his hand twitching in mid-air at the point where Cas had been standing as a snowman. Then he seemed to wake all the way up, alarm clear on his face.

“Cas!” he yelled, jumping to his feet – or trying, as the sleeping bag he was still tucked into almost tripped him up. Then he saw the angel standing behind Sam and his face slid back into relief.

“Cas,” he said again, managing to make the word sound completely different from the first two times he’d said it.

As Cas smiled and moved in front of Sam to walk over to Dean, Sam heard his mother start to laugh, and for a moment he wasn’t sure how to deal with that. He hadn’t actually heard her laugh before, but apparently the sight of her eldest grown son being helped out of a sleeping bag by his angel was finally enough to inspire it.

*


End file.
